


like you couldn’t have convinced any of us to leave

by raihaqyaza



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, CLAP Era, Canon Compliant, M/M, i tried to make this as canon as possible, idol!verse, mention of ex-trainee, mention of mixnine, mention of produce 101
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-06 23:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12828801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raihaqyaza/pseuds/raihaqyaza
Summary: They are in Vietnam in preparation for the award show when they finally break.





	like you couldn’t have convinced any of us to leave

**Author's Note:**

> Because I am emo that Samuel is sitting with Seventeen last night during MAMA. Also, Doyoon, Dongjin, Mingming, and Samuel used to to be a Pledis trainee, in case you're new to the diamond life.

like you couldn’t have convinced any of us to leave

by

raihaqyaza

disclaimer: they're not mine, none of them are (unfortunately), and i earn no profit whatsoever from writing this piece.

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Unusual tension fills the room as the whole member sit in a cold, loud silence in their hotel room hours before the bus to pick them up to practice arrives.

Their time is limited.

They have been strictly warned before they left to Vietnam to behave no matter how tempting the situation may be and they will definitely get into serious trouble for going behind their managers’ back for doing this, but they are hurting, they have been for a long a time now, and to hell with all the paparazzi, because family is family and their hearts have been torn apart for far too long.

“Where is he?” Seungcheol grits his teeth and glances over to Soonyoung.

The performance team’s leader sits in the far corner of the room, face buried helplessly in his shaking hands. Jihoon sits possessively next to him, expression radiating pure fury toward their leader.

“Forget it, Seungcheol,” Jihoon drops all formality and spits as the rest of the member looks up cautiously. “We don’t need this.”

Seungcheol simply lifts his brows at the hostility. He remains calm as Jeonghan grips his hands tight. “This is our only chance.”

“We don’t know that,” Soonyoung bites back viciously, hands clenched into a fist, and he is very close to breaking apart has it not been for Jihoon’s presence.

Jisoo inches closer to Seungcheol and Jeonghan, wary.

“Soonyoung-hyung, I’m sorry,” Hansol speaks up, and he sounds so very tired despite how controlled he tries to be. He pulls away from Seungkwan’s embrace, the older simply letting him and starts rubbing soothingly on Hansol’s cold hand. “I agree with Seungcheol-hyung. We’re lucky our management didn’t pay attention to him when they scheduled our comeback, and now we’re coincidently thrown into this circumstances by the higher-ups who don’t care about this petty conflict. There won’t be a next time for this mix-up, hyung,” he reasons.

“But why here?” Mingyu speaks up, because he, too, just like Soonyoung, simply wants to be done with everything. “Why can’t we do this when all the cameras are gone, back home?”

“Why are you trying to run away?” Seungcheol asks, all trace of calamity fading away.

Mingyu flinches, “Why are we still making a big deal out of this? Hyung, it’s been four years—”

“Exactly, it’s been four years, and we are not scared trainees anymore who can be threatened with not debuting if we act up.” Seungcheol snaps. “We’ve given them all we have. Is one conversation—a closure, Mingyu, too much to ask?”

Mingyu shifts in his seat under his leader’s challenging eyes. He can’t help but falter, because it all has to come down to this, right? He looks around and see the helplessness in everyone’s eyes, the aching in his leader’s mirroring in everyone’s, and they are just so tired.

2017 was supposed to be the year where they can leave all their baggage from their past in peace and truly, _truly_ start focusing on their works since they’ve secured a stable position in the industry. Their Carats love them, they get to comeback alongside legendary idols they’ve only ever admired from afar before, their new album is breaking the records from their previous ones, they were celebrating their hard work, until—

Their past came haunting back in the form of one survival show after another.

 

It all come as a shock and no one was prepared when they saw one Kim Samuel stepping up on stage to audition. They were watching for the purpose of supporting their labelmates, they didn’t expect to have the ex-trainee appear on screen. He was so tall, so handsome, and all the baby fat in his cheeks from the old days were long gone. He was different, but it didn’t take long for everyone to recognize him.

The room was filled with outrage and tears for their old friend then as they watched the live final episode, just as they cried for their fellow labelmates. Jeonghan was quick to reach his phone and get ahold of their leader after the show ended to make sure he was okay.

The busy and hectic schedule for their upcoming promotion helped as distraction after that, and for a little, little while, they were okay, because Samuel debuted with a song called Sixteen, and as much as the song brought Soonyoung to a teary mess despite its upbeat and youthful genre, they made sure to stream and vote with all they had—until another survival show aired and it took them all one glance at the TV before the air froze and breaths stopped as two very recognizable figures from their past appeared on screen.

—it was Jun who broke down first, though Seungcheol was not very far behind.

Minghao stood clueless as he witnessed his partner scramble for his phone and try to make a call, for he had never heard the full story of how circumstances broke apart Seventeen’s original China line, and here he thought he would finally, _finally_ stop feeling like a replacement the day Jun slipped into his bed in the middle of the night after a long day of practice and whispered in giddy excitement about his idea for ‘My I’.

(His mind was clouded with insecurity as Jun remained distant after, and he slipped on his own sweat so close to they day of promotion, hurting his back.)

Smiles vanished then, and the throne they stood on felt more like bitter ash than glory.

(Then, they dropped in the chart from one to twelve, and they can’t even bring themselves to blame their management for not promoting them enough. They told Carats not to worry, because the truth is, they are too tired to care too.)

Mingyu rubs his face in frustration. He understands their leader’s need for a closure, he has watched Seungcheol shoulder so much burden for the past four years, he knows how much the leader blames himself for not being able to hold them together no matter how much he knew everything that happened was out of his control. After all, how can you stop one’s parent from making a decision they think is best for their children? Or, convince someone that their dream is to become an idol and not an actor?

Mingyu opens his mouth—

“They’re not coming back, hyung,” A voice breaks, then sobs.

They all look up as one.

It was Chan, eyes on the person he looks up to the most.

“Chan,” Seokmin, closest to him, hisses in warning.

Seungcheol’s eyes darts over to their youngest, meeting his teary eyes. “Come again?”

“Is this what’s going to happen too, once we find out where Dongjin is?” Chan asks.

Seungcheol’s breath hitches at the mention of the second youngest, have they debuted all seventeen members instead of thirteen. He was the only one unknown, and Seungcheol had tried to get a contact, anything, to make sure he was okay, still pursuing his dream, but the other line never picked up, not even once, in this four years.

“Go to bed, Chan, it’s late,” Jeonghan glares, his eyes desperately begging for him to not make things worse.

“He’s right,” Jihoon leaves Soonyoung and comes closer to their leader.

Jihoon understands better than the rest of them, he was there when Seungcheol faced disappointment for the first time, when the management told him he would not debut with Nu’est, instead being thrown into another group full of loud children, forced to become the leader when all he wanted was to be a maknae of a group.

“We can’t stay like this forever. When are we going to move on?” Jihoon asks, straightforward but not unkind. “They made their decision, there was nothing we can do,” he says the mantra that their CEO told them as they left one by one.

The words lost its meaning the fourth time they heard it, but it must mean something _now_ four years later.

Seungcheol looks up, his thick lashes wet.

Jihoon looks around the room where everyone is in a similar state. Jun, especially, is looking away and gazes intently toward the bright city lights of Vietnam. Through the glass, his reflection shows the tears trailing down his face.

“It was their decision to leave, and now Mingming and Doyoon is back because things might not have worked out for them, so what? Don’t they deserve another chance?” Jihoon tries, because he, too, is in his breaking point.

He feels something shuffles behind him and lets the strong, warm arms drape on his shoulder, giving him strength.

“I know you think they’re riding on our name to fame,” Jihoon says what no one dares to say, it has been his job for a long time now, so he ignores how his members look up to him in disbelief. Your voice is too low, why can’t you reach this note, I know you didn’t warm up, leave the studio and _god damn it_ please do these songs justice. “Don’t—” Jihoon cuts Seungcheol off, “I know the thought is somewhere at the back of your mind.”

He knows Seungcheol, knows his demons that Jeonghan hasn’t managed to find, knows where to tug and pull to get a reaction the way he’s not quite familiar yet with Soonyoung.

Seungcheol’s jaw clenches. When he speaks, his voice is hoarse the way he had never been for the past four years, not since they began to rise in fame and started getting recognition left and right. “I could have convinced them more.”

Jisoo and Jeonghan trade glances at that, for they remember the time when they wished to quit and stayed for each other’s sake.

Jun looks away from the breathtaking view and turns to their leader. Jihoon knows Jun shares similar sentiment with Seungcheol and no one can blame the two for being particularly vulnerable the moment those episodes aired. Not Jeonghan, who is hurting but stays silent because it’s a territory he’s not familiar with, and not Minghao, who was never there in the drama to begin with.

(Jihoon envies him, sometimes.)

“You couldn’t have, hyung,” a shaky voice behind Jihoon speaks up.

Jihoon lets Soonyoung pulls him to his chest for support (for the two of them, because Soonyoung needs it just as much as Jihoon does.)

“Just like you couldn’t have convinced any of us to leave.”

Jihoon immediately breaks into a shaky laughter. Leave it to his lover to say all the cheesy words that no one dares to say. I love you, I cherish you, you look _ahem_ very nice, and sometimes, in their messages, he will also send cheesy, song lyrics consisting of _you got me like, boom boom, boom boom, yeah, boom boom, boom boom._

Jihoon presses his back closer to the dancer. As one, as bandmate, as lovers, as _leaders,_ they meet Seungcheol’s fond gaze. “He’s right,” Jihoon says, the pride in his chest spreading warmth all over his body.

“Damn straight I’m right,” Soonyoung mutters loud enough, and _oh finally_ , laughter spreads across the room.

Seungcheol rubs his face and lets out a deep breath. When he looks back up, there is warmth and strength on his face, the way everyone is familiar with.

The tension eases instantly.

The leader clears his throat, getting everyone’s attention. Seungcheol meets their eyes, starting from Jeonghan, then over to Mingyu, Dino, one by one, until it rests on the two leaders he’s shared his burden with.

_Like you couldn’t have convinced any of us to leave._

He didn’t realize how much he needed to hear that, because ever since they debuted, all thirteen amateur hopefuls, he has been clouded with fear. If the greatest boy group who debuted with twelve members lost its members one by one, who can guarantee thirteen won’t become twelve, eleven, ten, nine, until there is nothing left of them anymore?

The fear never left him, and it never showed its ugly head for the past years despite how often the members yell become frustrated with one another, because they talk things through, they always do, and he is grateful that they are a bunch of crybabies who really can’t go through a fight without it ending in tears as Seungcheol make them hug it out.

Until he saw Samuel on screen, then Mingming, and standing next to him—

Doyoon.

(Where is Dongjin?)

Why did they leave, Mingming and Doyoon, especially, if they’re going to come back at the end of the day?

Seungcheol shakes the question he’s been haunting himself with and looks back to the expectant faces of his member.

_Like you couldn’t have convinced any of us to leave._

“I’m sorry,” he tells them. In his apology, he begs for them to stay. In his apology, he deeply appreciates the presence of each and every one of them for who they are. In his apology, he tells them he loves them, cherishes them, and promises them that this will be the last time he brings them down.

“Thank you,” because as they scramble over to him one by one, as they end it in a group hug, he is truly, truly grateful with the family they’ve come to be.

* * *

Samuel enters the hotel room's lobby and sees them, all thirteen of them, waiting for the bus that is meant to take them to practice in different state of disarray. 

They spot him right away and his heart threatens to break through his ribcage. 

It was his ex leader and older brother who steps forward first. Seungcheol approaches him despite his manager's hold and takes Samuel in a big, enveloping hug. 

"I'm proud of you, Muel-ah," he tells him in a scratchy voice.

Samuel laughs to his chest (and oh, is that tears on his face) and remembers the kisses Seungcheol attempted to steal many times during their trainee days. Samuel hugs him as tight and buries his face in the safe embrace of Seungcheol, because it's painful and he misses them so very much.

He is no longer a member of Seventeen, will never be with them unless Heaven hears his prayers and performs a miracle, but he fought tooth and nails to debut with Sixteen for he will be damned if they think they can make him forget, so he tells Seungcheol, and Soonyoung who appears right next to him, and Jihoon, Hansol, Jisoo, all of them who is willing to accept him despite how little he can give. "I'm back."

Seungcheol ruffles his hair then, and what Samuel hears next is warm and safe.

"Like you ever left."

(He performs Sixteen and Eye Candy in the premier of MAMA and he thinks he can keep on going as long as Seventeen looks back at him with the pride that will always give him strength.)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if Dongjin, Doyoon, and Mingming left Pledis in good or bad terms, though I know as much as you know about Samuel's mum not wanting him debut at such young age or Doyoon wanting to pursue his dream as an actor. I wrote this to let off some steam and I hope everyone is in good terms with one another.


End file.
